Monday Links from Near-Lockdown vol. DLV

[DoctorStrangelove]

Oh, you asked "Why?"...

Silly question.

I knnow.

That's why I asked it, like.

Says the chap currently "fixing" a 1959 valve car wireless.

Er, the PIC programmer was courtesy of Ye Olde Sloughe of Desponde.

I don't think they missed any of the bits.

[Zigenare]

Er, why? Just askin' like.

Are those chips still available or NOS?

They don't make 'em any more but I have 5 if you'd like one, plus a PCB, as I owe you one for the PIC programmer pcb you sent me... Might even throw in the rest of the components. Just say the word!

Oh, you asked "Why?"...

Silly question.

[DoctorStrangelove]

re: Latches Inside

I've just built one of these

Er, why? Just askin' like.

Are those chips still available or NOS?

[Zigenare]

All moving along nicely this morning, I see.

Plenty of cyclists heading down the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic. Hopefully natural selection will play its part!

[ladymuck]

CamJam - Traffic cam mashup by Jonty Wareing: ”This is a near-realtime view of London from over 900 TFL "JamCams" scattered across the city. Cameras are chosen randomly, and video is delayed by around 30 seconds. Playback is at 4x speed due to some very dull cameras.”

All moving along nicely this morning, I see.

[Zigenare]

re: Latches Inside

I've just built one of these

IMO, the NEC "V" series are much more interesting than their Intel equivalents. YMMV.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Though if you read the small print, it seems to be just one of the eyes that was well enough preserved for them to observe the features in detail

Ok.

Aye. Eye.

[NickFitz]

Eye Eye.

Though if you read the small print, it seems to be just one of the eyes that was well enough preserved for them to observe the features in detail

[DoctorStrangelove]

Eye Eye.

[NickFitz]

Still trapped in the plague city. TBH it hasn't made any difference to my life whatsoever

• How A Canadian Pilot Became The First Westerner To Fly The Feared MiG-29 Fulcrum - An unusual opportunity came Royal Canadian Air Force Major Bob Wade's way in the closing days of the Cold War: ”Having a chance to take the controls of one of your principal enemy’s top-end fighters is a pretty unusual event in itself. Wade had no idea what awaited him at the 1989 Abbotsford International Airshow, where he would find himself in the front seat of a MiG-29UB combat trainer with only a rudimentary 10-minute briefing, no understanding of Russian, and a back-seater with only the most basic grasp of English.”
  
  
• Fabulous fossil preserves eyes of 429-million-year-old trilobite - ”The University of Cologne’s Brigitte Schoenemann and the University of Edinburgh’s Euan Clarkson took a look into the eyes of one exquisitely preserved trilobite specimen, and they learned plenty about how the creature’s eyes developed and what that says about evolution.”
  
  
• Battle of the Grizzly Titans: The Boss vs Split Lip - John E. Marriott watches two grizzly bears squaring off: ”It was legendary. It was The Boss vs Split Lip, the two largest, toughest and most famous grizzly bears in Banff National Park, in an encounter that thrilled me to my very core. It was easily one of the greatest wildlife viewing encounters of my life, which, when you consider I’ve photographed wolverines, cougars, grizzlies and other beasts for almost thirty years, should tell you all you need to know about what’s to come.”
  
  
  
  
  
• On Class, Capitalism and Urban Planning in Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Olivia Rutigliano ponders the deeper significance of the 1988 film: ”Despite its hand-drawn aesthetic, anti-gravity antics, silly sound effects, and ceaseless funny business, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a grim and very serious movie about the disenfranchisement of a group within society labeled as lower-class.”
  
  
• CamJam - Traffic cam mashup by Jonty Wareing: ”This is a near-realtime view of London from over 900 TFL "JamCams" scattered across the city. Cameras are chosen randomly, and video is delayed by around 30 seconds. Playback is at 4x speed due to some very dull cameras.”
  
  
• Mysterious carvings and evidence of human sacrifice uncovered in ancient city - Aztecs? No, Chinese: ”When a team of Chinese archaeologists came to investigate the conundrum several years ago, they began to unearth something wondrous and puzzling. The stones were not part of the Great Wall but the ruins of a magnificent fortress city. The ongoing dig has revealed more than six miles of protective walls surrounding a 230-foot-high pyramid and an inner sanctum with painted murals, jade artifacts—and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice.”
  
  
• Inside the mind of an animal - ”Neuroscientists are scrutinizing huge piles of data to learn how brains create emotions and other internal states such as aggression and desire.”
  
  
• Photographing the Dark: Nadar’s Descent into the Paris Catacombs - Allison C. Meier on the groundbreaking techniques developed by a 19th century photographer: ”When Félix Nadar descended into this ‘empire of death’ in the 1860s artificial lighting was still in its infancy: the pioneering photographer had to face the quandary of how to take photographs in the subterranean dark.” This is the man himself, taking a selfie
  
  
  
  
  
• Latches inside: Reverse-engineering the Intel 8086's instruction register - Inside the instruction register of the 8086: ”The 8086 makes extensive use of dynamic latches to store state internally. These latches are visible under a microscope and their circuitry can be traced out and understood. The 8086 is an interesting subject for die analysis since unlike modern processors, its transistors are large enough to see under a microscope… It was a complex processor at the time, with 29,000 transistors, but it is still simple enough that the circuitry can be traced out and understood.”
  
  
• Belly Of The Beast: Illicit Photos From Inside The Soviet Ekranoplan - The Soviet ekranoplan Lun has appeared here before (Jan. 2011 vol. LVII, Jun. 2011 vol. LXXVI) but is now being moved to become part of a museum. Photographer and urban explorer Lana Sator snuck inside: ”Inside the entrance, Sator says ‘light bulbs were on and a generator was humming very loudly.’ Then they saw a security guard. Somehow the guard was sleeping through the generator’s din. With the noise covering their footsteps, Sator and her companion -- both dripping with seawater -- were able to sneak past him and into the belly of the Soviet beast.” Bonus linky: An interview with Sator from 2018; and she’s appeared here before, when she snuck into a rocket factory in 2012, annoying the Russian government very much: Jan. 2012 vol. CVI
  
  
  

Happy invoicing!